Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11   John 1:6-8, 19-28

December 14, 2008     Third Sunday of Advent

First Congregational UCC/Reverend Deb Davis

     There was a Peanuts cartoon in the paper this past week … one that is now hanging on my office door. It begins with Lucy holding up a sheet of paper … right in the face of Charlie Brown.

     “This is my “git list” Charlie Brown,” Lucy brags. “These are all the things I figure I’m gonna “git’ for Christmas … from my two grandpas and two grammas and eight uncles and aunts.”  

     Then Charlie Brown poses a question to Lucy. He asks her: “Where’s your ‘give” list?” Lucy responds, “My what?”

     As Charlie Brown walks away … he says to himself, “I knew it.”

     Charlie Brown’s question is a good one for us … as well as Lucy … to ponder this season: Do we even have a “give list?”

     I suspect that everyone here this morning has by now heard the story of the Wal-Mart employee who was killed on Black Friday in New York.

     He was a temporary … hired for the busy holiday season … trampled to death by stampeding shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving … shoppers conditioned by marketing ploys to believe in scarcity rather than abundance … shoppers who supposedly believed that getting a good deal on a 50-inch, flat-screen TV was paramount that morning … shoppers who, perhaps, were feeling a heightened sense of anxiety in the current economic downturn … shoppers worried about missing out.

     This man’s death is a tragedy for those who knew him … but it also becomes a tragedy for all of us … because it so symbolizes our “git list” mentality … symbolizes all of the over-the-top consumerism of the past many decades.

     Both figuratively and literally … as one national newspaper columnist wrote recently … this event is a symbol of death by consumerism.

     It is a symbol that will join many others in defining our time … other stories like Enron’s blatant dishonesty and Lehman Brothers’ greed … other stories of massive compensation packages for clueless CEOs … who flew those private jets to Washington to ask Congress for a bailout … other stories of Chicago politicians literally trying to sell a senate seat to the highest bidder … all stories that define who we have become.

     And into all of this … all of this that is the stuff of our lives in 21^st century America … comes the voice of John the Baptizer … comes the voice of the Prophet Isaiah. Here come these voices on this third Sunday of Advent … witnessing to another way … reminding us to pay more attention to our “give list” than to our “git list”… no matter … that our culture … sings a different song.

     Our lectionary reading this morning from the Prophet Isaiah … must have been one of Jesus’ favorite passages.

     We know that because we are told in the fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel that when Jesus was asked to read in the temple … at the very beginning of his ministry right there in his home town of Nazareth … he read this same text:

     “God has anointed me … sent me to bring good news to the oppressed; to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.”

     According to the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman … this text from Isaiah imagines a Jubilee year … a year in the biblical vision when all are freed from debt literally … a year when the table becomes so level that even the poorest can find a seat.

     Jesus reads this text and then he says … “I am the one God has sent to accomplish this … not just for all of you who are here and listening today … but for all people.”

     And those who heard what Jesus had to say that day … did not like what they heard. Those religious leaders … whose lives echoed the dominate culture … those who had the most to loose if this redistribution of power came to be … they ran Jesus out of town and nearly pushed him over a cliff.

     Because from that day to this day … most people with power have a “git list” that is way longer than their “give list.”

     It is this very same Jesus who the Baptizer is pointing to this morning.  He is pointing his finger at this one who says he has been sent by God to level the table for all people … sent to create a just world out of the horrible greed and destruction of the way things are … that same Jesus, John says … is the one he came to witness to.

     Because God is going public … God’s word is becoming flesh … dwelling among us … to show us the way.

     John, of course, is now long gone … his voice heard only when we open the book and read these ancient texts. So this Advent season it is up to the church to carry on his witness … up to the church – you and me - to point our collective finger at Jesus … at the way of Jesus … up to us to pose a direct challenge to the way of the world.

     Many of you may know the children’s book by Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

     The Grinch is a grumpy guy who lives up the hill from “Who-ville” … a place where all the Who live … little creatures who are always singing and happy … which makes the Grinch even grumpier.

     So the Grinch decides he’ll shut them up by stealing all the Christmas presents from under the tree along with all their Christmas decorations and all the food they have prepared for the celebration. Because he believes, like many of us, that without all the stuff … there won’t be a Christmas.

     But the next morning to his surprise … the Who are singing and celebrating anyway … and the Grinch is shocked … and he finally realizes that taking all of the stuff didn’t stop Christmas from coming … it came anyway … came without ribbons or tags or packages or boxes or bags.

     And so the Grinch says, “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.”

     Perhaps … just like in this wonderful children’s book … we, too, will discover this year that all the stuff under the tree can disappear … the 50-inch flat screen TV may never be ours … that we might not get anything on our “git list” … and still Christmas will come.

     Perhaps this is the year we will refuse to cave in to all the marketing ploys … perhaps this is the year we won’t max out our credit cards to make our kids happy for an instant … perhaps this is the year that as families we can even begin to develop our “give list.”  

     Perhaps this year all the excesses of our secular Christmas will die … and we will come to understand that we do not in any way honor Jesus’ birth … by shopping, spending, charging.

     And then … maybe then … we will be able to truly join hands and sing with the Who … truly celebrate the God who is with us in real and deep ways … and witness to the reality that the Grinches of this world haven’t stolen anything we truly need.

     Perhaps we can begin to witness to the way of Jesus … by ourselves claiming these words from Isaiah as the foundation for our own “give list.”

    Without spending any money, how could you show the love of God to someone beaten down by poverty right here in Angola?

     How could you help someone with a broken heart hold their grief?

     What would you have to personally share about your own life  … to proclaim the possibility of liberty to one who is captive to addictions … what would it require of you to help release one who is imprisoned with shame?

      These are the things that fill up a “give list” … these are the ways to witness to the life of Jesus … these are the ways to truly celebrate God with us. Amen.